


Sweet

by QuickLikeLight



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Bonding, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Sherlock, Omega Verse, Post-Reichenbach, Scent Kink, Sex Toys, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:26:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickLikeLight/pseuds/QuickLikeLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock knows that he's going to have to tread carefully when seducing his once-again-flatmate John Watson after his return. When an unexpected heat throws off his timeline, Sherlock realizes that he truly does always miss something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into Omegaverse, which is fun and exciting. As always, thanks to [picturestoproveit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/picturestoproveit) and [Essbee](http://get-stiles.tumblr.com/) for being my sounding boards, even when they are both slightly icked out. 
> 
> Comments, concrit, and other feedback all welcome and appreciated.

A long, thin, dressing gown-clad body sprawled artfully over the sofa, a mess of limbs and curls and pale skin where his t-shirt had rucked up around his ribs at some point in his irritated flailing. John huffed in his flatmate’s direction as he grappled with multiple grocery sacks.

“Don’t suppose you’d like to give me a hand with this,” he let one of the bags slide to the floor and pushed it along with his foot while balancing the other three in his begloved hands. The performance may have been a bit overdone, but he was a bit overdone himself, and it wouldn’t hurt Sherlock any to see that.

The prior week had been an exhausting mix of chasing down leads and suspects in a black market breeding ring. _If I never smell another Alpha’s intimidation pheromones it will be too fucking soon_. He made it to the small table sitting in the middle of the kitchen and pushed the bags onto it, careful not to crush the bread or the eggs, especially since those were the only things Sherlock had consented to eating for the last five days. He stripped out of his coat and scarf, laying them neatly over the back of a chair before pulling the final bag up off the floor and emptying food items into the fridge and cupboards.

He was still settling in again, really, though it had been six months since he’d been back, but it felt good to be buying groceries for Baker Street instead of his own dreary little flat, or even the one he’d very briefly shared with Mary. _Still home_ , he thought as he shoved the last of the greens into the crisper, noticeably absent of human appendages. It had changed, of course; they had changed, and Baker Street adapted. But the sounds of Mrs. Hudson puttering downstairs, the latent smell of rubbing alcohol and dust, even Sherlock’s annoyed growling about the telly or the necessity of food were all comforting, home-like. And after everything, it was nice to feel at home.

A rustling from the sofa drew John’s attention as Sherlock deigned to reveal he was, actually, conscious and not still sleeping off the case.

“You’re up then? Glad to see it. Thought you might sleep through at least two days after this one,” John laughed, but his voice was kind. He went to boil the kettle, listening intently for Sherlock’s no-doubt pithy rejoinder.

“I feel like I was hit by a truck,” Sherlock stretched but didn’t pull his shirt back down. The large swath of creamy skin was broken only by the thin trail of dark hair disappearing into his pajama pants. John watched him out of the corner of his eye, careful not to be caught, but Sherlock wasn’t paying attention to him anyway. Instead he was writhing like a cat on the sofa, rubbing his mop of curly hair back into the Union Jack cushion and arching his back up in the stretch. John fought the flush rising to his cheeks, and his response was a bit more acerbic than he’d meant it to be.

“Well, you’d probably feel a bit better if you had a bite to eat. Your ribs could be counted from space, you know.”

Sherlock’s stomach roiled in protest at the thought of food. “I ate breakfast…”

“You ate toast and tea at half-four this morning, Sherlock.”

“Like I said, breakfast.” John huffed a laugh despite himself.

“You may be bloody brilliant, but your sense of self-preservation is undeniably still broken.”

Sherlock shot a searching glance at his doctor, but John just smiled as he puttered around the kitchen. _Not upset, just a joke, no need to apologize._ Sherlock tried to will away the tension in his shoulders but his skin felt much too tight. He shook his head and lobbed back.

“John, as ever, you see but do not observe. I am much more inclined to self-preservation when not surrounded by disgusting Alpha stench for the better part of a week. I would eat, only the memory of the smell makes me nauseous. I wouldn’t mind some tea, though, if you’re already making some.

He generally asked these days, instead of commanded. It didn’t matter; John had already taken a cup out of the cupboard for him.

“Speaking of disgusting Alpha stench, have you showered since the case ended, or did you just change and be done with it?” John didn’t look in his direction, but Sherlock sat up and peered at him anyway.

“Of course I bathed, John. I would never have been able to think with that scent everywhere. Why on earth would you think that?”

“Nothing, just a… well, a funny smell, you know? In the flat today. Could smell it coming up the stairs. Didn’t really smell like Alpha, much too sweet, but you never know. Beta senses aren’t that great anyway, and it’s been a while since I smelled an Alpha not wanting to tear my throat out,” John shrugged as the kettle whistled, pulled it off the heating element. “Perhaps Mrs. Hudson is baking something.”

Sherlock didn’t respond, simply flounced over to grab his half-prepared cup of tea and then left the room with speed and grace that would have made a normal man flush with awe. John just shook his head.

“You’re welcome, you great prick.”

-

Sherlock paced his room, agitated. He should have suspected it, really. Mini-heats could be, were often, triggered by the strong scent of Alpha-in-rut. As much of a defense mechanism as anything, the Omega physiology learning to protect itself from lethal sexual encounters. _It’s too soon. I should have at least another 23 days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes, give or take, until my next heat._ Thoughts whirled in his head, not sharp and clear like they should have been, but hazy with the slow burn of impending heat. _I haven’t even talked to John yet…_

The thought of John, out there puttering around, so close Sherlock could smell him, made his mouth water. Brilliant John, pretending, just like him. Not like him, though. John was strong, and smart, a medical man and a soldier. Sherlock had seen him enough times without a shirt to recognize the dense musculature of an Alpha male, even if he was getting a bit soft with age. His steady hands, the protective impulses, the way sometimes he let his hand rest on Sherlock’s back, so proprietary. He would have hated it from anyone else, but from John it was a secret, guilty, lovely pleasure that he wallowed in.

And now this spontaneous heat was going to botch everything up. If he went out there, John would smell him. If he stayed here, John would smell him. If he sent John away, John would probably still smell him. His joke about Beta senses was too obviously revealing; they both knew a Beta wouldn’t have smelled the beginnings of heat pheromones. John would know that he had been hiding, he wouldn’t get a chance to explain, and John would be upset. Of course he would be. Their friendship was still so fragile, after everything: the fall, his long absence, his bitter reaction to John’s lovely new fiancé, the horrible accident that took her away. It was fitting back together, of course, but Sherlock wasn’t sure it would survive an unexpected heat. And besides, friendship wasn’t all he’d been trying to protect; when he’d gone off the suppressants, his intentions were quite the opposite of platonic. A high whine caught in his throat as unbidden, familiar daydreams of tanned skin and blue eyes flashed through his increasingly lust-addled brain.

Sherlock ran one hand through his dark hair and pulled, hard. The bright shock of pain was enough to clear his mind for a moment as he shot off a text to his brother. Since Mycroft was going to be a meddling pain in the arse no matter what, he might as well take advantage of it.

_Need a safe zone, scent-free. SH_

_Plans with Dr. Watson not going accordingly?_

Sherlock grimaced before typing out a crude response. Mycroft did hate it when he was lewd.

_If they were, I would be impaling myself on a lovely Alpha cock in about an hour. Will you help? SH_

_Childish, Sherlock. A car will be there shortly. Bring your own supplies_.

Sherlock quickly stuffed a duffle with a few pairs of pants, his secondary pajama bottoms, a spare t-shirt, and the spare travel kit of Beta Bodywash and a toothbrush that he kept in his room for emergencies. He dug in the bottom draw of his nightstand and pulled out a wooden container, about the size of a shoe box. He considered unpacking the contents themselves, but at the sound of his mobile vibrating on the bed, decided to just shove the whole box in his bag. He didn’t change out of his lounge clothes; after all, no one would see him except Mycroft’s cheeky handmaiden and a silent, faceless driver.

He slipped out of his room as quietly as possible. As soon as he was safely away from the premises he’d send John a text, say it was a case for Mycroft or something, anything really except the truth. He made it almost all the way to the landing before he recognized the rough cough of his flatmate from the kitchen.

“Off somewhere, then?” John’s voice was strangely flat.

“Ah, just, something for Mycroft, called me, it’s urgent,” Sherlock could feel the moisture bubbling up on his forehead, the back of his neck, pooling in his groin. “Have to go out of town, shouldn’t take longer than a day or two, no need for you to, ah, join me.” His voice sounded overly bright. _He knows. He has to know. It’s ruined._

John didn’t comment on it, though. Just nodded and replied in that distinctly colorless tone, “Of course. After all, you always take cases in your lounge clothes.”

Sherlock stood stunned for just a moment. His mobile buzzed again, this time from the pocket of his bottoms, but he didn’t need to check the screen to know it would be Anthea-or-whatever-she’s-going-by-now chastising him for keeping her waiting. John turned, put his back to Sherlock in a decided movement, and began to wash the few dishes that had collected over the week.

“John, I…” Sherlock struggled to pick the words out of the red-rosy haze of hormones. _Need you. Want you. Wish you would have me. Know you wouldn’t want me, not like this, not in my right mind. You’re too good, John and I-_ John cut him off as surely as if he’d been speaking out loud.

“Go, Sherlock. Just…go. I’ll be here when you get back.”

For once in his truly ridiculous life, Sherlock did as he was told. 


	2. Chapter 2

It hadn’t lasted long, thankfully; the suppressants took the edge off, anyway, and pheromone-induced heats weren’t typically as strong as those brought on by his natural hormone cycle. Still, Sherlock felt exhausted and hazy as he trudged back up the stairs to 221b thirty-nine hours later. The flat was dark and the heating was apparently off. He shivered as he entered, wrapping his thin dressing gown tighter around his frame and cursing the numb, chilled feeling that heat always left at the end. His thoughts whirred as he registered the stillness of the room, the quiet radiating from upstairs, the distinct tidiness of the kitchen. For all of John’s assurances to the contrary, he had left.

_Kitchen’s clean, as is the sitting room, frightfully clean, all the dust is gone, he’s run the hoover, my desk has been tampered with, the cupboards look as if they’ve been wiped down, everything smells like bleach and artificial lemon, must have been upset, only really cleans when he’s angry or worried, he knew where I was so he must have been angry, couldn’t have been worried, he never worries unless I’ve disappeared…_

Sherlock flopped, boneless, onto the sofa. The overwhelming blankness of scent-neutralizing home spray clouded his senses. His duffle still smelled cloyingly sweet, a reminder to throw his things in the wash before John returned, or to fob them off on Mrs. Hudson. He slipped his phone out of the pocket of his bottoms but, just like fifteen minutes prior, there were no messages from John. It buzzed.

_The Doctor is fine, but I wouldn’t expect him home tonight._

Sherlock rolled his eyes at Mycroft’s heavy-handed surveillance.

_As if I need you to tell me that he’s gone to Stamford’s. –SH_

_Slipping, little brother. Not Stamford’s. Not now._

Sherlock sat up in confusion, despite knowing Mycroft would be watching.

“Not at Stamford’s. Not at Stamford’s? He always stays at Stamford’s when we fight. Says Mike owes him since he’s the reason we met to begin with. He used to stay with girlfriends, of course, but he’s been…”

_Has John acquired a new female partner in the time I’ve been away? - SH_

_If he had, it would serve you right._

_If you know something, tell me. I will not ask again. – SH_

_I’m sure he’ll inform you of his whereabouts when he feels it has become your business._

Sherlock huffed and threw himself back down on the couch. He should shower. He should change into cleaner clothes. Something that didn’t smell like a mixture of heat pheromones and lubricant and the faint plastic smell of Mycroft’s secure room. Instead, he pulled the neck of his dressing gown up over his head and buried his face in the back of the sofa, letting the off-white smell of neutralizer drown out the lingering traces of tea and wool.

-

John had tried to stay away. He camped on Harry’s couch for a full two days longer than he’d expected to be able to, ignoring her abrasive asides and alcohol-fueled funks with the cool head only someone who had lived with Sherlock Holmes could manage. _No. Don’t think about Sherlock._ As the cab approached Baker Street, he cringed, knowing what would come next. He’d go upstairs. Sherlock would be fine, probably wouldn’t even comment on the fact that he had hidden his gender for the entirety of their relationship, wouldn’t explain the look of pained disgust on his face before John told him to leave. It was fine. John didn’t need him to explain. Of course Sherlock would be upset that his body was revealing that very intimate secret after all this time. It wasn’t Sherlock’s response that bothered him. It was his own.

John felt the nausea building again as he went over the clues in his head. Beta Bodywash, that intimately-familiar prop, had kept his scent from cluing anyone in. John assumed he’d been on fairly high dosages of suppressants. Likely didn’t even have heats most of the time. Of course not, who could imagine the great Sherlock Holmes writhing with lust, incapable of thought beyond “submit, present, breed?” No one.

Which is why, all this time, John had just assumed his flatmate was an Alpha.

It was strange, wasn’t it? The fact that he’d had a heat so unexpectedly? After years on suppressants, he should have had plenty of hormone control built up in his system to overcome the Alpha smell. Unless he’d stopped taking them… which would mean he’d been planning to take a mate. John’s stomach sank. He imagined Sherlock with someone else, someone strong and whole, someone who wouldn’t hide his feelings for his best friend under layers of protective grief. His throat tightened and he swallowed. It didn’t matter, of course. Not now. But he had let himself hope, when Sherlock asked him to come back, when he’d been so understanding after Mary’s death. John could admit it to himself even if he couldn’t to anyone else: he had hoped.

He ran a hand over his face, massaged the tight skin around his temples. The cab slowed to a stop in front of an achingly familiar door and John carefully counted out small stack of notes into the man’s hand. With his little overnight bag slung over his shoulder, he girded his loins and went inside, hoping against hope that maybe he’d have an hour or so to himself before Sherlock expected him to resume life as if none of this had happened.

Of course, that was way too much to ask.

“John, you’re back,” the detective said a bit dumbly, dressed impeccably in a black suit with a pressed white shirt. The clean tailoring accentuated his slim, masculine figure, but stopped at his ankles, where bare feet with almost-blue toes peeked out. John vaguely remembered turning the heating off when he left, unsure of when Sherlock would be back, and apparently it had not been turned back on. Sherlock looked a bit gaunt as well, even compared to his general appearance of slight malnourishment. John mentally calculated the days since they’d last seen each other: it had been Sunday, and then Sherlock had been gone for at least a day after that, and he’d left Monday for Harry’s, so it had to be Wednesday now. He racked his brain trying to remember.

“Have you eaten since breakfast on Sunday morning, Sherlock? You haven’t, have you?”

“I have had very important things on my mind, John, and I don’t think tea or sandwiches is going to--”

“Probably haven’t even eaten a piece of toast in three days, you bloody idiot,” John let his overnight bag fall to the floor and trudged into the kitchen to switch on the kettle and prepare his idiot _Omega_ flatmate something to eat, since the man was apparently inept at even the most basic of survival skills. Sherlock caught his arm and spun him around.       

“John. I ate toast. Now, if you would please listen to me, I have something I need to discuss with you,” his face was pale and he shivered despite the suit jacket, but he looked determined. John just sighed and shook his head.

“You don’t. Nothing to discuss, Sherlock. You’re an Omega, hiding as a Beta, no issue for me. If your suppressants are giving you fits, I can talk to Sarah and see if she’ll give you a higher dose,” John turned back toward the kettle and started busying himself with tea making, trying to make his voice as strong and casual as possible.

“I know you’re not an idiot, John, but you do struggle with the uptake sometimes. I went off of my suppressants weeks ago. I’d just been waiting for the right moment to discuss it with you,” Sherlock had kept his hand locked on John’s right bicep, and he squeezed gently, encouraging John to face him again. “It was obvious on Sunday that you smelled it, the heat. You realized it before I did, but your self-control was extremely admirable.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sherlock. What happened on Sunday had nothing to do with me. Spontaneous heats happen, especially if you’ve gone off the suppressants. Nothing to be concerned about, it’s all fine,” John was babbling. He tried to pull his arm out of Sherlock’s grasp but the pale man held tight to him, worming long, cold fingers into the knit of his jumper.

“John, please let me finish. Your self-control was extremely admirable, but completely unnecessary,” Sherlock’s voice dropped considerably, and John suddenly noticed how close they were standing, less than six inches of space separating his body from that of his best friend. A strange, sweet scent permeated the air, like honey and mint and the faint, deep-warm-brilliant smell of burnt sugar. John sniffed the air and stepped back.

“Go sit, Sherlock. I’ll bring your tea and then we can… just forget all this, yeah?”

“You’re rejecting me.” Sherlock didn’t sound hurt; rather, he sounded confused, and perhaps a bit in awe. “I know my attraction must be obvious to you by now. I haven’t taken a suppressant since I left Mycroft’s. My natural scent is much stronger now that I’ve undergone a heat, the last remnants of my old suppressant regimen flushed out. You blushed when you smelled it, and you don’t seem angry,” Sherlock quirked his head to the side before continuing his deduction.

“You often display physical signs of attraction to me, as well: your pupils dilate, your breath comes more quickly, you stare sometimes when you think I can’t see you. Even after my…after I left, when I returned you were angry, and married, but when you needed someone you came to me. We have a bond, already, the strongest one I’ve seen in an unbonded pair. I have never experienced the draw of your pheromones, though. Army-strength suppressants layered over with Beta wash, no doubt, give you that unassuming smell to match your unassuming looks. But I’m not assuming when I say there is no way that you, John Watson, are actually a Beta, and there’s no way you’re not at least somewhat attracted to me, so I’m asking you… why are you rejecting me?”

John shook his head as he pressed a cup of scalding tea into the detective’s hands and pushed Sherlock bodily into a chair at the table. He pulled wedge of likely-looking cheese out of the fridge, sliced it into chunks and laid it out on a plate before adding an apple and setting that before his flatmate as well. Having fulfilled his caretaking duties, John slumped down into the opposite chair and let his head hang in his hands.

“You’re not wrong, of course,” his voice sounded preternaturally calm, considering what he was about to reveal. “I’m not a Beta. I do take military-grade suppressants. The Beta wash is just so I have some sort of scent. The clinical smell that the suppressants give off can be irritating to a lot of people. So yes, I do use that to cover up. And… and yes, of course I find you… attractive. Always have, really. Thought I’d got over it, especially when you ah…” _died_ , “…were away, when I was with Mary, but when I moved back in it seemed as strong as ever. So, yeah, I had hoped…”

Sherlock waited for a long moment, sipping his too-hot tea, feeling the warmth spread to his cold fingers and toes. The silence spun out between them, heavy and meaningful, before he prompted his would-be-lover again.

“But. There is a ‘but…’ at the end of that phrase, John.”

“You always miss something, don’t you Sherlock?” John smiled a horrid, sad, devastating smile. “We can’t bond, because I’m…not an Alpha.”

Sherlock sat dumbfounded for a moment before his brow crinkled in frustration.

“No, that’s not possible. You’ve just said yourself, you aren’t a Beta, and you take very strong suppressants. You were in the military and you’re a doctor. Even with recent milestones in gender rights legislations, those are primarily Alpha fields. You’d have to have fought against discrimination and red tape and completely denied…” Sherlock trailed off and looked blankly at John’s face. “You did. You just… rejected it, didn’t you? Dated Beta girls. Suppressed your heats. Had to have been doing so since, what, presentation? Couldn’t have been distracted with heat during exams or surgery or war. You decided what you wanted to do before you knew, didn’t you?”

John just nodded, avoided Sherlock’s eyes.

“You decided when you were young, and everyone assumed you’d be an Alpha because… your build. Broad in the shoulders, and you wouldn’t have been short then, though height isn’t necessarily an Alpha trait. Your need to protect helped too, I’m sure. Harry?” Sherlock asked, wrinkling his brow. One corner of John’s mouth quirked up as he remembered pummeling the boys at school who had called his Alpha sister a freak. He nodded. “It fooled me too, of course. Don’t see many Omegas with the strength of will to take a life, and you’ve taken more than one with relative ease, though we have always been exceptions to most of the Omega nature rules,” Sherlock shot John a small smile at that, but it wasn’t returned. “You were strong, so they thought Alpha and you made decisions based on that assumption. And when you presented, you just pushed through it and did what you wanted anyway.”

“Like you,” John flashed him a soft look, just the corners of his mouth curving upward.

“Like me, in most things, but better. I didn’t reject it right away you know… I shared a heat with an Alpha in university once. It wasn’t completely unpleasant. But after… John, I hid my anatomy out of fear of weakness, of intimacy. You did it out of a desire to do good. You’ve always been the better of us, John,” Sherlock’s voice was quiet, almost pained.

“Not better, Sherlock,” John shrugged and stared intently down at the table top. He followed the wood grain with one finger, dragged his nail over the shiny whorls. “Different. And as much as you will deny it, you want to do good too, you idiot. We both know that. Especially now.”

“You may be correct,” Sherlock leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “You still haven’t answered my question, though.”

John mentally replayed the last few minutes of their conversation, searching for unanswered questions. His brow wrinkled.

“I don’t…” Verdigris eyes stared deeply into dark blue, and John felt as he always did when Sherlock really looked at him: as if he could give up the fight, put away his armor, relax in the knowledge that there was nothing left to hide. And now it was true.

“You didn’t answer me. Why are you rejecting me, John?”

John sputtered and his eyes widened as Sherlock’s question sank in.

“Why am I… Sherlock, there was a mistake, we both… we both made a mistake and that’s… that’s not something we can do, together, I mean…”

“There is a societal prejudice against Omega pairs, but it isn’t as if we haven’t been the subject of societal prejudice before. You’re not at all devoted to the idea of a typical bonded pairing; after all, there’s no way you could have that with beta women. You might have initially been put off by the fact that I’m male, but you’ve already admitted that you find me attractive, and you’re obviously… devoted to me, as am I to you. I see no reason why our secondary genders should interfere with the successful introduction of further intimacy to our current relationship,” Sherlock reached one hand across the table to grasp at John’s. He forced their palms together and interlaced his long pale fingers with John’s shorter, darker ones. Despite the casual clarity of his words, delivered with as much emotional depth as any other deduction, a pretty flush highlighted his cheeks.

“Sherlock, I know what you’re saying but…” he swallowed back the bile trying to work its way up his throat. “I can’t be what you need. You know that.” John tried to pull his hand away, but Sherlock held tight.

“You are misunderstanding me, John. I don’t need an Alpha. I need you.”

Sherlock rose gracefully from his chair and stepped around the table to settle himself squarely between John’s spread thighs. He pulled the hand he was holding around his own waist and dipped his head slowly, carefully, giving John plenty of time to move away. Dark blue eyes stared intently back into his. Sherlock hovered, his plush mouth centimeters away from John’s.

“Me?” John’s question was barely a whisper but it echoed in the hopeful sparkle of his eyes, the slight lifting of his slumped shoulders, the tightening of his fingers around Sherlock’s.

“Always have. And you need me, too,” Sherlock breathed back before inching closer, letting his lips press soundly to the thin, dry, perfect mouth of John H. Watson. All at once, John’s arms came up around Sherlock’s neck and pulled him down, forcing Sherlock to kneel unsteadily on the edge of John’s chair. He kissed with finesse, moving his mouth deftly over the curve of Sherlock’s lips, parting them with the tip of his tongue, darting in but only teasing. Sherlock’s pulse raced, his heart fluttered in his chest, warmth suffused his chilled limbs. He pulled back to catch his breath, resting his forehead against John’s.

“It’s yours… my body, my heats, all of it, if you want it,” he panted against John’s face.

“I don’t want your body, you great idiot,” John smiled, nuzzling his face against Sherlock’s neck. A low giggle escaped his throat. “Well, not _just_ your body. I want you. Body and brain and heart,” his voice caught, but he pushed forward, “and all the in-betweens and the bits that make me want to punch you and all of it… just, all of it, Sherlock. I want it all.”

“Then you shall have it all, my John,” Sherlock pushed his face into John’s shoulder and slumped against him, reveling in the feeling of John’s arms around him, John’s hot breath on his neck, the love spilling out of his mouth. “And should you ever change your mind… I will immediately remind you of this day.” John huffed a laugh against him, causing a shiver to thrill up Sherlock’s spine.

“Sherlock, I’ve been waiting for this day for five years. If it’s all right with you, I don’t plan on forgetting it.”

“We will just have to make it very memorable then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh. That chapter was a beast. I would apologize, but I have a feeling you won't mind. 
> 
> If you were here for fluffy lovey slightly angsty happy-ending times, this is your exit, friend. If you are here for shameless O/O M/M porn, well then, you are in luck. The next two chapters (yes, two, I know I said three originally but... it was just not working out that way so here we are) will be mostly smut. I mean, this *is* Omegaverse, after all. They are both half-written right now, so hopefully I'll have Chapter 3 up this weekend, and Chapter 4 early next week. 
> 
> As always, comments / concrit / suggestions / excited squealing are all 100% welcome. Find me on [tumblr](http://anneincolor.tumblr.com) and be my friend.


	3. Chapter 3

            Sherlock took John’s hand again and pulled him up, out of the chair. He padded along, his bare feet whispering over the floorboards as he led the way to his bedroom. John tugged on his arm to halt his progress.

            “Sherlock… are you sure you… I mean, now? Right now?” John was looking at him equal parts concern and arousal, and they warred for dominance on his expressive face as he took in Sherlock’s cool fingers, tailored coat, the small bulge of his erection trapped in his trousers. _Aroused but concerned, worried about me, why?_ Sherlock tilted his head to the side as he mentally deduced. _Omega presentation at… roughly 15 but hasn’t had a heat… since then, perhaps. If so, sparingly. Long periods between heats make them more intense. Obviously never shared with an Alpha, too afraid to out himself, so unlikely to have gotten any pleasure from even minimal heats. Finds them… painful. Oh. He thinks I would do this with him even if I was physically in pain from my recent heat, just to cement my promise._ Sherlock nodded sharply and spun John around, pushing him back toward the loo.

            “You’re absolutely right, John. You smell like Beta wash and I absolutely will not rest until that is gone. Clinical smell or not, I want no masks between us,” Sherlock scooted around the smaller man to turn on the shower and briefly considered thanking Mrs. Hudson for updating the bathroom while he was away. Steam billowed out of the roomy glass shower stall. Sherlock turned John bodily to face him. His eyes darkened with lust as he slowly pulled off the doctor’s jumper and t-shirt, and ran cool hands down his bare chest.

            “You’re sure,” John said softly, not a question this time. Sherlock just nodded as he shrugged out of his jacket, flung it carelessly out the open bathroom door. His hands began to work at the buttons of his shirt, but John stilled them with his own. A careful kiss pressed against his lips, and John’s tongue slid deftly along them, not sliding between them but over, around, lapping cautiously at the skin. Sherlock sighed against John’s mouth, allowing the doctor to explore more thoroughly with his tongue as he plucked at Sherlock’s buttons. John toed off his shoes and slid them toward the door with his foot, working his mouth down the pale expanse of Sherlock’s throat.

            “John… I need you naked, and I need that now,” Sherlock grumbled in his ear, and the very blood in John’s veins boiled with heat.

            _Not heat_ , John corrected himself. _Passion, yes. Arousal, yes. Love, probably yes. Not heat._ _Not for us._

            He quickly unbuttoned his jeans as Sherlock slid his own shirt off of his shoulders. Long, pale fingers showed up brilliantly on the darker skin of his hips and waist, and John shivered slightly at the sight of them pushing down his plain black pants. He hooked a finger into Sherlock’s waistband, but Sherlock deftly removed his hand and pushed him toward the shower.

            “Nothing between us John,” he murmured as his pale gaze swept over the stretch of John’s exposed skin. “Not anymore. Get in.”

            John stepped out of his jeans and into the shower stall. Sherlock handed him a bar of scent-neutral soap and a washcloth, trying to keep his features as passive as possible. John wasn’t fooled though; the slight crinkle of the corners of his eyes, the quirk of the left side of his generous mouth, the flash of lust as he swept his gaze up and down John’s small body all gave him away. Sherlock stripped himself efficiently, automatically folding his trousers and laying them on the vanity. When he faced the shower stall again, he was arrested by the vision of John standing just outside the fall of water, covered in a thin layer of sudsy lather.

            John crooked his finger playfully at the stunned detective, a crooked smile plastered across his face.  His cock hung full and heavy by his leg, large by Omega standards, barely obscured by the small mass of bubbles he’d lathered up there. Sherlock licked his lips unconsciously before stepping into the shower stall and crowding John against the wall. He took hold of the detachable showerhead and ran it gently over John’s body, lovingly erasing any traces of soap or unnatural scent. Over his head, carefully keeping it out of his face, down his arms, over the faded silver of his scarred shoulder, a sweeping arc down his torso. John’s whole body flushed with excitement, arousal, need. Even under the effects of the suppressants, he could feel his body attempting to open, to lubricate. He squirmed as the water flowed over his hardened cock and trickled down his arse. Sherlock stepped back to examine his handiwork, ridding John of the lather left on his shins.

            “Nothing between us now,” John smiled with his eyes, and stepped forward to capture Sherlock’s lips with his own. Heat coursed through his chest, his thighs, lit up his fingertips as he dragged them down Sherlock’s shoulders, his back.

            “Not anymore, no,” Sherlock exhaled against his mouth. He clutched the showerhead against John’s back with one hand, while his other walked down John’s chest to rest gently on the small protrusion of his hip bone. He gripped solidly and pulled John’s pelvis forward. John’s cock bobbed up with interest, and the head dragged along the base of Sherlock’s, sending shockwaves of pleasure up Sherlock’s spine.

            “Need you,” John gasped, obviously feeling the effects of their unintentional frottage. Sherlock ground against him, aching for more contact.

            “Our height difference is extremely frustrating, John,” he growled against John’s neck, peppering the skin there with blooming bruises.

            “So sorry that my genetics have offered you multiple disappointments today, Sherlock,” John ground back, gripping the detective’s cock with a fierce grin. “Maybe this will help?” John sank down to his knees on the tile, graceful and easy, his hand still on Sherlock’s aching erection. He pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s hip bone, sucking a small bruise over the thin skin, and looked up at his lover with a cheeky smile.

            Sherlock felt the showerhead slipping out of his hand, but he was incapable of breath at that moment, much less voluntary motion. John caught it easily and let it rest on the shower floor, spraying gently over his knees, thighs, and calves, all bent up together. He let his right hand drift lazily to his own erection, giving it a few slow, tender pulls as he reached up with his left to take Sherlock in hand. Sherlock clenched and unclenched his fists repeatedly, dragging air in through his teeth.

            “It’s alright, love,” John said softly, still smiling. He smoothed his hand down the tense length of Sherlock’s thigh, up over his generous arse, around his sharp hip. Sherlock let his head fall back as a soft groan escaped his mouth. John reveled in the detective’s involuntary noises and shifted up on his knees. He brought his face in close, nuzzling the join of Sherlock’s thigh to his groin with his face, and lapped gently and the delicate skin there. Sherlock shuddered, his knees weak. He staggered back to lean against the wall, but John followed, planting wet, sopping kisses everywhere but where Sherlock wanted them most. He let out a frustrated growl and tangled one hand in John’s short hair, tugging him forward.

            “Are you planning to be in that area long, then?” Sherlock tried to joke, sliding his hard length against John’s cheek. Dark blue eyes peered up at him from under dark blond eyelashes, and John waggled his brows suggestively.

            “Have some tour suggestions, do you?” John placed a few more teasing kisses, nosing the small tuft of hair just above Sherlock’s cock, letting his warm breath dance over the sensitive skin. Just as Sherlock opened his mouth with a witty retort, John swallowed him down.         John tongued the head gently, winding it lovingly around the ridge as he applied gentle suction. He pressed his face into the hard line of Sherlock’s body, allowing the small Omega cock to fill his mouth and tease at his throat before pulling back with long licks up the shaft. A quick glance up at his partner revealed a panting, breathless, keening detective, eyes closed and nostrils flaring. John continued to lick and suck as he patted around the bottom of the shower, searching out the shower head. He pulled it forward as gently as he could, careful not to arouse Sherlock’s attention, and began twisting the dial one-handedly until a steady stream of pressurized water spewed forward. John grinned around his mouthful of cock, lifting one of Sherlock’s knees to settle over his good shoulder.

            Sherlock wobbled a bit standing that way on one foot, but John helpfully pinned his hip to the wall, letting the detective relax under his mouth. And, _God_ , what a mouth. Fire and ice coursed through Sherlock’s body, sensations chasing one another until he was overwhelmed: John’s hands on his hips, steam pressing heavy on his skin, John’s gorgeous lips wrapped around his cock…

            And then, quite suddenly, the inexorable force of something not-quite-solid-but-almost pushed against his opening and Sherlock crumpled. John caught him swiftly, extricating himself from the limbs of his flailing lover, and lowered Sherlock to the floor of the stall as easily as he could. Sherlock gaped up at the doctor, trembling with pleasure and shock.

            “Didn’t mean to startle you that much,” John laughed easily before delving back down, licking stripes up Sherlock’s still-rigid member. Sherlock groped uselessly for the source of the water, trying to push it back down toward John, but the increasing suction on his cock was shorting out his powers of observation.

            “John, find that damn thing and… and put it back!” he gasped, scrabbling uselessly at the tile. John reached up with one strong hand and laced Sherlock’s fingers together with his own. He rubbed his face into Sherlock’s groin again, scenting the man as best he could despite the suppressants, and then aimed the showerhead carefully so that the rush of water hit Sherlock’s entrance squarely. Sherlock arched up, but John used his body to hold Sherlock in place, clinging to his hand and pushing the stream of water flush against his lover.

            “John, John, please, I-” Sherlock squirmed underneath him, pinned and aching for release. “I’m going to, _please_ , need you…!” John squeezed his hand and dipped his head, swallowing Sherlock again to the root, and orgasm washed over the detective like a tidal wave. John swallowed the meager amount of come that bubbled up from Sherlock’s straining cock and eased the showerhead away, twisting it so that a gentle fall of water would replace the driving force. He sprayed it carefully over Sherlock’s trembling body, and slid his palm over the wet, warm skin.

            “John,” Sherlock pulled him up, settling his smaller body on top. John abandoned the showerhead, letting it spray haphazardly over their sides. “John, you are…perfect.” John grinned down at him before planting a sloppy kiss on Sherlock’s open mouth. The detective stretched sinuously, arching his body up into the doctor’s, and then stopped short. “You are perfect… and still very hard.”

            John wriggled momentarily on top of him before sliding up on his knees, straddling Sherlock’s body.

            “Well, you’re the problem solver of the two of us… can you find a solution to this situation, Sherlock?” They exchanged a heated glance as Sherlock wrapped his long fingers around John’s erection.

            “I’m sure I can think of something.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. So. This turned into a monster, and I couldn't stop it. I believe that the next chapter will be it for this fic, but since I've decided "This will be it!" twice prior to writing a chapter, and twice had to go back on that, I will refrain from making any promises. I hope this fluffy, feelsy romp is at least mildly satisfactory. 
> 
> A note on the times listed: The "present" for this chapter is 6 months after our declarations-and-hot-showers day. In this chapter, time quickly jumps back 16 weeks from that point, and then moves steadily forward until we get to the present day again.

_Six Months Later_

            Sherlock paced the sitting room, his dressing gown billowing behind him. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and checked the time, _again._ Mycroft was late, and it was unacceptable. John, his John, was in there, in that bedroom, keening and writhing and _needing_ and he was here, out here, waiting for fucking Mycroft to get his fat arse to Baker Street.

            A long, low whine sounded from Sherlock’s bedroom and he shuddered with want, imagining John there, stretched out against his sheets, rutting his arse against the bed. He’d seen and had John in almost every way there was in the past twenty-six weeks. He’d tasted his Omega mate, ran his tongue up John’s cock and down the cleft of his arse. He’d rubbed him with fingers and palms and he’d dragged his cheek across John’s light, sparsely-furred balls. He’d learned to love the sweet smell of his Omega’s arousal: heavy vanilla, spicy cardamom, fresh apples. He’d learned how to lave his tongue over the slight protuberance of John’s scent gland, to mouth at his ears and neck and collarbones, to nip at the backs of his thighs.

            And he’d learned how to accept. How to open and feel and have a lover heavy on top of him and inside of him without needing the driving urge of heat. How to tilt his head in submission out of feeling, rather than instinct. How to laugh at the possessive bruises John left littering the pale skin of his neck and shoulders, his ribcage, his inner thighs. How to give them back, leaving rose petal markers of his desire on bronzed skin. His heat had come and gone in a blur of need and satisfaction, so much better than he’d anticipated, even compared to his prior experiences. He’d had something with John that he would never have had with an Alpha: reciprocity. They were equals, and in their desire, they were the same. It was enough to make Sherlock’s breath catch in his chest, for his throat to heave with the effort of not just spilling over, _I love you, my John, I love you, forever, Mine_.

            And now, today of all days, when he should be with his lover soothing his raw skin and peppering his flushed face with kisses, he was here, in the sitting room, because his abominable brother was late with the one item they needed to make this… _real._

-

_16 Weeks Earlier_

            “Did you want to, then, ever? Bond, I mean?” John asked over breakfast, munching placidly on a piece of toast with honey smeared over it. Sherlock catalogued the change; _he’s exchanged his normal jam for honey, possibly because of my scent, perhaps it reminds him of me, so he’s altered his normal breakfast. Sentiment. Fascinating._

            “What, me? Bond? No, of course not,” he responded offhandedly. A lie of course. He had meant to bond, with John, when he’d assumed John was an Alpha. It was fine. This was… good. It was better than good. Even without the biological push, he and John just… made sense together.

            “Oh. Of course not,” John said, a strange little hush in his words, like he didn’t quite want them heard. Sherlock cocked a confused eyebrow at his lover.

            “It isn’t as if you had particularly wanted to bond, was it? After all, you never sought out partners with whom that was a possibility,” Sherlock took a sip of rapidly-cooling tea and made a face. Not enough sugar. His sweet tooth had become unbearable of late.

            “Of course not, no, why would I?” John smiled at him but looked off over his left shoulder, clearly avoiding eye contact. “I couldn’t have anyway, without everyone knowing, and that would have been… awkward.”

            “But you wanted it anyway,” Sherlock realized as the words tumbled out of his mouth.

            “Before. When I thought you were an Alpha. You strutted around with this big Alpha attitude and you told me what to do and I just, you know, assumed…”

            “Attitude is three quarters of Alpha behavior anyway. That and possessiveness, which I have in spades,” Sherlock grinned across the table but John looked a bit lost, still not meeting his eyes.

            “Yeah, you do. So, you fooled me, which isn’t your fault of course, you needed to, I could have been anybody when we met, and then you thought I was an Alpha, so it wasn’t as if you were going to reveal yourself to me then, without knowing how I’d react,” John trailed off, thinking about Before. “But yeah, then, when I thought you were an Alpha, I… thought about it.”

            “Hoped for it?” Sherlock slid a hand across the table to catch John’s, squeezed his fingers gently and massaged small circles on the back of his hand with one thumb. John sat quietly for a moment before meeting his eyes.

            “Yeah. Yes. I did, hope for it.”

            “I did too.”

            John smiled a bit sadly at him before squeezing his hand and pulling away, getting up to put his breakfast dishes in the sink. When he spoke again, back to Sherlock while he rinsed his dishes, his voice was heavy with emotion.

            “Either way… bonded or not, you’re… the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Sherlock. The best man I’ve ever known,” he turned and smiled at Sherlock over his shoulder with wet blue eyes. “You understand that, right?”

            “Only because you cannot know yourself the way I know you,” Sherlock responded. He stood and reached for John, wrapped his arms around the blond’s waist, nuzzled the short bristles of graying hair with his nose. John’s scent, chemically blank, filled his senses and he rested there in it for a long moment, just breathing despite the starkness of it. And in his head, a plan was forming.

-

            Sherlock worked in the quiet hours, the stolen minutes before John got up or after he went to bed, while he picked up shifts at the clinic or went out for beers with Stamford or Lestrade. He sat at his microscope, staring at pheromone mixtures from bonded pairs, single Alphas, Omegas in heat, synthetic hormones. He examined the differences between his own bonding fluid, a secretion from his scent gland that he had Molly Hooper extract during a very painful and invasive visit to the morgue, and fluid from Mycroft’s scent gland, strong, harsh Alpha smell under glass. He took a sample from John along with blood, hair, fingernails, saliva, skin scrapings, and a few hard-won tears, under the guise of needing to catalogue all of John’s individual physical reactions. John hadn’t protested, even though it had been uncomfortable. Sherlock had known he wouldn’t.

            Sherlock kept his work secret. Mycroft knew, of course; he’d guessed before Sherlock had even asked for a sample.

_I assume you’ll be needing a scent gland secretion._

_If it isn’t too much trouble. SH_

_Brother, everything to do with you is too much trouble._

_Then this should not be unusual for you. SH_

_I’ll have a vial sent over with my assistant._

_Oh, and Sherlock?_

Long minutes passed before Sherlock gave in.

_Out with it, Mycroft. SH_

_You have my most sincere congratulations._

            Sherlock huffed, but when Anthea-or-Jane-or-Reinette-or-Eleanor brought the small bio-storage cold bag to the door, he shot off a begrudging “Thank you. SH.”

-

Roughly three weeks after Sherlock began his pheromone investigation, it was his turn to be surprising. John sat at the end of the couch, two-fingered typing a response to one of his blog comments. Sherlock had draped himself over his armchair, allowing his head to dangle off one arm and his legs to hang off the other.

            “I’d like for you to discontinue your suppressants, John,” he said, quite conversationally.

            “I’d like for it to stop bloody raining, Sherlock,” John drawled, not looking up from the keyboard. Sherlock huffed.

            “What kind of a response is that?”

            “Oh, I thought we were just spouting off random impossible things we’d enjoy.”

            “Why impossible?” Sherlock glared at the doctor, but John continued typing, placid as ever.

            “Oh, I don’t know, possibly because I’ve been posing as a Beta for basically my entire life, heat is horrifying, and I don’t want random Alphas on the street trying to bend me over a park bench?” John shut his laptop with a snap and stowed it on the coffee table. He pulled his legs up underneath him and turned so that his body faced Sherlock completely. “What’s going on, Sherlock? Why do you want me to stop the suppressants?”

            “You’ve lived your entire life chemically subdued. You’re a doctor, John. You don’t need me to tell you it’s not healthy,” Sherlock sat up in his chair, feet falling noisily to the floor.

            “And that’s why, is it? Because it’s unhealthy? Sherlock Holmes is now giving me wellness tips?” John huffed a laugh. “Come on. What’s the real reason, Sherlock?”

            “Perhaps I am concerned for your mental well-being as well as the physical,” Sherlock sighed. “You may have come to terms with your gender-”

            “There’s no ‘may’ about it, Sherlock. I’m an Omega, I have an Omega mate, and it’s all fine,” John interrupted.

            “Be that as it may, a primary function of the Omega gender is to share heat, and you can’t. Not like this.”

            John sat for a moment, trying to work out exactly what Sherlock was saying.

            “You think that if I don’t share heat with a partner, I’m not… what, Omega enough?” his brow furrowed and blue eyes flashed with anger. “Is that what this is about? First I’m not a Beta, then I have to tell you I’m not an Alpha, and now I’m not even a real Omega to you?”

            Sherlock bounded up out of his chair and swept toward the couch where John was hovering right on the edge of white hot fury. He sank to his knees in front of the prickly form of his darling.

            “I don’t care what you are, John, you have to know that. I only care for you. I…,” Sherlock raked his hands over John’s thighs, knees, up to his hips, firm and gentle at the same time. “I wished to share it with you, that’s all. I had hoped it could be something we could give one another. If you don’t wish to do so, I won’t mention it again.”

            John immediately softened, as he often did when Sherlock gave words to the dearer sentiments of his heart. He pulled the detective up onto the couch and then half into his lap, wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders.

            “I’m not ready just yet,” he sighed into dark curls. “Maybe someday, yeah? But not yet.”

            “It doesn’t matter, John,” Sherlock nuzzled his face into John’s neck, trying not to flinch at the caustic chemical smell that emanated from his skin. “We have the rest of our lives.”

-

_Three Weeks Later_

John panted as he struggled to hold his body up off of Sherlock’s, giving the man space to breathe. The air in Sherlock’s room was heavy with scent, the almost-cloying smell of heat and sweat and Omega come filling their nostrils and mouths. John licked up the side of Sherlock’s neck, drinking in the taste of fevered skin. Under him, the detective groaned in satisfaction. His body still trembled with overwhelming urges, but his eyes were bright and clear, and the hands that gripped at John’s shoulders and hips were strong. John lowered himself gently onto the body of his lover, keeping most of his weight on his elbows, but Sherlock continued to pull him down until they were pressed together from collarbone to thigh. The small rutting movements of Sherlock’s hips underneath him sent a thrill of pleasure up John’s spine and he pressed a hard kiss to obscenely chapped lips.

            “How much longer, do you think?” he asked when they had to pull apart for air.

            “A few more hours. Two rounds, maybe three,” Sherlock shifted, the large toy inside him starting to deflate as the knotting simulation ended. “Starting to get my head back.”

            “Do you feel alright?” John’s flushed face hovered over Sherlock’s, concern written all over his expressive features. “Do you need anything? Should we… do you want to stop, or for me to leave?”

            Sherlock tightened his arms around John, moving his hands down to grip the doctor’s arse.

            “If you leave this bed before I am finished with you, I cannot promise that Lestrade won’t need to be called,” Sherlock groaned against his face, speaking the words into John’s mouth as he ground his hips up, his arousal building once more.

            “Are you threatening me, Mr. Holmes?” A cheeky grin flashed across John’s face as he pushed back, his rapidly hardening cock brushing against Sherlock’s.

            “Not unless you are refusing to fuck me, Dr. Watson.”

            John glanced at the read out on the digital clock on Sherlock’s nightstand before turning back to press kisses to his neck and ear.

            “Well, I’ve been at it for three days, fourteen hours, and thirty seven minutes already,” He let his cock slide against Sherlock’s, pulling a loud moan from his increasingly frenzied dear, and reached back for one of the toys laid at the ready. “I don’t much see the point in stopping now.”

 

            Hours later, a warm strip of light from the window pulled Sherlock out of his sated doze. Next to him in bed, with his back pressed to the headboard, John sat curling his fingers thoughtfully through Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock pressed a kiss to the thigh under his head, snuffling with drowsy contentment.

            “It was… good, yeah?” John’s voice was hesitant despite the obvious evidence of how _good_ it had been.

            “The best it’s ever been,” Sherlock said, sounding as matter-of-fact as he could with a fucked out voice and borderline dehydration.

            “And it didn’t hurt?”

            “Not a bit.” Sherlock nuzzled closer to John’s groin, hoping to catch a scent of his natural musk before reminding himself it would just be sterile blankness there. Above him, John sighed and then scratched gently behind his ear.

            “Alright,” John’s voice was quiet, but firm. “I’ll go off them.”

            Sherlock sat up so quickly that his head spun a bit, and he had to grab John’s shoulders to steady himself.

            “You don’t have to, John. I don’t want you to feel like-”

            “No, I know,” John curled his hand around the nape of Sherlock’s neck and pulled, bringing their faces close. He breathed a small kiss over Sherlock’s lips before resting their foreheads together. “I don’t have to. Want to. I want to share that with you.”

Sherlock shuddered with want and climbed into John’s lap, straddling his hips. He pressed a desperate kiss to the blond’s mouth, tongue searching out hidden spaces and teeth scraping over thin lips. John laughed into him, and it felt like pure oxygen filling his lungs.

“The heat, still? Really?” John’s strong arms circled his narrow waist as Sherlock felt himself hardening again.

“No, not the heat. Just you, John.”

-

_Two Weeks Later_

_Vanilla._

            “John, did you buy that incredibly disgusting flavoured coffee again?”

            John stepped into the sitting room with a towel slung around his waist, tied tenuously at the hip, and used another to scrub over his hair.

            “I think I need a haircut. Do you think I need a haircut, Sherlock?” John ran his hands through the really rather lengthy locks, trying to get them to lie flat.

            “The coffee, John,” a frustrated sigh huffed from a blue satin lump on the sofa.

            “What about the coffee?”

            “Did you get the flavoured coffee again?”

            “What flavoured coffee? Did you ask me to get flavoured coffee?” John screwed his face up in confusion.

            “Of course I did not ask you to get flavoured coffee! It is atrocious and I would never ask you to get-”

            “Then why the bloody hell are you going on about flavoured coffee, Sherlock? For Christ’s sake, I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

            “The smell, John!” Sherlock turned over to face his flatmate-cum-lover and was hit with a fresh wave of the heavy vanilla scent. His eyes widened comically and he flailed in his hurry to get over to John’s mostly-naked-and-still-quite-wet body. He dipped his head to John’s neck and dragged his nose up the damp skin, inhaling the strong, sweet smell. Irrational though it was, he couldn’t help but stick his tongue out, wondering if the warm vanilla flavour could be tasted. John pushed him back with a laugh despite the rapid, shallow breaths he was taking.

            “Found what you were looking for then, have you?”

            “John, it’s started. I can smell you,” was all Sherlock could stay, devouring his small mate with his eyes.

            John’s smile made the corners of his eyes crinkle in a way that left Sherlock a bit breathless, but not nearly as breathless as the kiss that followed it.

 

_Cardamom_

            The crime scene was stifling. Sweat ran down the back of John’s neck, and it was a testament to the uncomfortable nature of the heat that Sherlock was not even slightly inclined to lick it off. As it was, a pretty blush had already mounted on the detective’s cheeks, his suit jacket had been tossed aside, and John had the sleeves of his t-shirt pushed up to his shoulders. Lestrade was barking orders at the forensics team, trying to get the evidence gathered and processed as soon as possible, but everyone moved at a glacial pace, sapped of strength by the sultry air and dim interior of the blood-spattered flat.

            Sherlock was crouched down next to the victim, a young ginger woman with a dent in her skull and lifeless green eyes. While he examined the body, John examined him, taking in the way his white button down stuck to his shoulder blades, the sweaty nap of hair clinging to his neck, the flush of the tips of his ears. John’s gaze wandered further down, to the delicious arse that pushed out ever-so-slightly as Sherlock leaned over the body to check the wound again. Despite everything, the heat, the crime, the dead girl, John was suddenly hit by a wave of longing that he felt from his fingertips and toes, that tingled through his spine and his gut and made his mouth dry and his throat constrict.

            Sherlock’s head jerked up from where he’d been completing his investigation. There was something in the air, something… different. Warm, but in a spicy, pleasant way, not like the suffocating climate. Lestrade sat up and took note as well, scenting the air subtly before settling a hard look in John’s direction.

            “She had a roommate that wasn’t a roommate, it was her girlfriend. Check to see if the girlfriend is wearing gold nail varnish; if so, it was her, if not, it was the boyfriend,” Sherlock pulled himself up to his full height and attempted to extricate his doctor from their current situation. Lestrade stopped him with a hand on the elbow.

            “You just said she had a girlfriend.”

            “Of course she did, obviously cheating, didn’t want her parents to find out she was seeing an Alpha, so she kept the Beta boyfriend around to make everyone feel better, but, well, we all know how possessive Alphas can be,” Sherlock said it as breezily as he could, still trying to push John out into the open air beyond the flat, but Lestrade held tightly to his arm. John watched them both with a look of growing confusion, but didn’t voice his concerns.

            “Aye, I know all about Alphas. Not so sure you do, though,” Greg wasn’t even looking at Sherlock anymore, just holding him there while he watched John, trying to pull in more of that spicy-sweet scent. Sherlock glared at him, and when that got no response, stamped very efficiently on his left foot. Greg winced and released him, stepping back a few paces.

            “Alphas don’t have the market on jealousy, Lestrade,” he replied smoothly, propelling John out the door. “Could always be the boyfriend. Check the nail varnish. We’re leaving.”

            By the time a cab stopped for them, John was bouncing on his toes and smiling.

            “You smell like take-out.”

            “Is that your way of saying you want to gobble me up?”

            “No,” Sherlock crossed the backseat of the cab, pushing his face right into the sweat-damp skin of John’s neck and licking a long stripe up to his ear. “This is.”

 

_Fresh Apples_

On Thursday, John trudged up the stairs 26.8 seconds slower than normal. Sherlock sat at his microscope, watching the interaction of a synthetic Alpha blend with his own Omega pheromone secretion, but the heavy tread of John’s brogues on the steps caught his attention. As John walked in, he catalogued.

            _Lab coat over his arm, didn’t leave it at the surgery, didn’t wear it home, perhaps it needs cleaning, something must have happened, running about an hour and a half behind schedule for his normal Thursday shift, may have gotten into a row with Sarah’s new nurse, forgot to eat lunch and he’s hungry which has made him feel guilty because whatever happened with a patient-_ Oh.

            Sherlock crossed to his partner in three long strides and wrapped him up in a tender embrace. John sagged against him, the weight of the day rolling off of his shoulders. He buried his face in the hollow of Sherlock’s neck and shuddered.

            “Accident?” Sherlock’s voice was soft and low, barely a vibration to John’s ears, but he recognized the question anyway.

            “A taxi. Right in front of the clinic. Swerved to miss an idiot backing out, hit a woman in the crossing,” he choked out, trying to pull out of Sherlock’s arms. Sherlock held tight, walking them both back toward the sofa. When his legs hit the side of it, he allowed himself to crumple down, pulling John with him.

            “There was… nothing you could do, John,” he cursed himself inwardly. For all his deductive prowess and his physical presence, he couldn’t offer John comfort for this, not really.

            “I held her hand,” John rubbed his face against Sherlock’s soft t-shirt. The damp patch that was steadily forming there didn’t surprise either of them. “There was nothing I could do. Right there in front of the clinic and I couldn’t do a god damned thing to help her. Just like…”

            Sherlock wrapped his arms more tightly around the doctor and rocked him slowly, soothingly, back and forth, as if he could somehow ease the memory out of him. The image of John on his doorstep almost two years ago flashed through his brain: soaking wet from the rain, covered in someone else’s blood, agony written in every line of his face and shuddery sob he tried to hold back. Sherlock had been stunned that John had come to him at all; they’d barely spoken since his return, and no amount of explaining on his side could convince John to forgive him.

_“She’s gone, Sherlock,” was all he said. He just stood there on the doorstep, clutching his own elbows, until Sherlock pulled him bodily inside and up the stairs. Sherlock pushed him into the hottest shower he could stand, binned his ruined clothes, made tea. He sat there in the sitting room floor with his friend, and they’d shared a bottle of whiskey that made his mouth ache, and John had told him about the three years they spent apart, about how John had missed him. And then John told him about Mary._

_“Some bloody idiot wasn’t paying attention to the road. She was in the crossing behind me, lost her shoe. She always… she did things like that, you know?  Things like losing her shoes in the middle of the road, or showing up to a party two days early, or watching crap telly with guests over. She lost her shoe, so she went back and picked it up, and… And I was right there. I was right there and I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t even… I couldn’t even see the license plate number. So I just held her hand, and talked to her. And she died. Right there in front of me. Like I wouldn’t completely lose it without her. Like she wasn’t the most important thing.”_

Sherlock sat up, leaning against the arm of the sofa, and buried his face in John’s shoulder. They sat there, holding one another, John’s shoulders shaking with every inhale and exhale, until the sun had set and the flat was dark around them. When John finally sat up, eyes red and nose raw, a burst of fresh, light, pure scent hit Sherlock like a blow to the gut. He winced, and John sniffled.

            “You know that you’re… you saved my life, Sherlock. More times than I can count. And no matter what happens, this will always be the best decision I ever made.”

            “Of course, John,” Sherlock tried to smile, but the memory of John sobbing her name in his fitful sleep that night seemed to pull the life right out of it.

            “I loved Mary, Sherlock,” John grabbed Sherlock’s hands and wrapped them up in his. “I know you understand that in the abstract, but I don’t think you know what it means.”

            “She was…yours. You chose her. You loved her. I know I can’t replace her, but if I could give you some of that happiness back-”

            John silenced him with a careful kiss, just a chaste press of the lips for half a second.

            “You give me your own happiness, Sherlock, and an abundance of it,” John sighed against him, burrowing back into his chest. “I loved Mary, and part of me will always love her, and I will mourn her, and I will always wish she was here. And as I get older, the pain will fade, and I’ll remember her as the wonderful woman I almost got to marry. No matter what else happens in my life, that won’t change.”

            Sherlock’s shoulders slumped as he processed what John was saying. As much as they had shared, John loved Mary. It was to be expected of course; who could love Sherlock Holmes? But his heart ached with the knowledge anyway. He turned his head toward the back of the sofa, trying to rein in the gamut of emotions that was no doubt playing over his face. _You assumed, he never said, shouldn’t theorize ahead of the data-_

            John’s hand came up to cup his cheek and turned his face back down, and Sherlock cringed when he realized his own eyes were wet.

            “See? I told you that you didn’t know what I meant,” John breathed a small laugh. Sherlock tried to pull his face away, but John held him firm. “I loved Mary, and I always will. But that doesn’t mean I can’t also love you, Sherlock. It doesn’t make me love you less. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend the rest of my sodding life with you, whether that means chasing criminals and patching you up, or attempting to steal Mycroft’s umbrella and sneaking into the morgue, or moving to the country to raise rabbits and write violin concertos. Where you go, I follow. Where you stay, I stay. I loved Mary, but I have always loved you, too. I will never stop loving you, Sherlock Holmes.”

            With that, John pressed a kiss, a real kiss, long and deep and full of emotion, into Sherlock’s mouth. He painted Sherlock’s lips with words: _love, need, touch_. He pushed emotions in alongside Sherlock’s tongue: _desperation, want, safe_. He wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders and settled into his lap, pushing them together as tight as he could, and breathed into his detective: _forever, mine, life_.

            “What did she smell like, John?” Sherlock whispered against his lips, getting lost in taste and feel and smell of John’s body against his.

            “Apples, love. She smelled like rain, and apples.”

-

_Present_

            A knock at the door broke through Sherlock’s thoughts and he flung himself out the door, down the stairs, and into the foyer. A familiar form stood in the entranceway. It’s-Lynn-Today-Thanks shot off multitudes of e-mails from her Blackberry as she cradled yet another bio-storage bag in one hand. She peered up at him momentarily from under her sunglasses as a keening whine sounded from the flat above.

            “Sounds like he could use a hand,” she quipped with a smile that was all teeth. Sherlock rolled his eyes at her and tugged the small, soft-sided cooler out of her arms.

            “Yes, thank you for your lascivious display, now get out,” he held the door open for her, fairly pushing her out onto the doorstep, and slammed it behind her, briefly thanking whatever gods might exist that Mrs. Hudson had decided to visit her sister for the weekend. Sherlock raced up the stairs, yanking open the zipper on the bag, and then bolted the door to the flat. Inside the bag: a vial of brilliant, honey-and-sunshine yellow liquid, topped off with a tamper-proof seal and stored inside scent neutralizing plastic, and a capped syringe filled with clear, viscous fluid. For a moment, he just stared at the little vial, grinning a bit maniacally at what it meant, for him and for John.

            “Sherlock! Please, it’s burning up and I’m… I feel… God, please, just hurry…”

            Sherlock rushed to his bedroom, abandoning his dressing gown and t-shirt in the process. He stood in the doorway in just his cotton pajama bottoms, chest heaving as he was enveloped in the scent of John in heat: vanilla, cardamom, apples, and something darker, more primal and unrecognizable, incredibly enticing. John was curled up and trembling on the bed. His naked skin was flushed with heat and shiny with sweat, and Sherlock felt an intense need to lick every drop of it off of his body. He slid his pajama bottoms off with care, his erection already heavy with blood, and sank down onto the bed next to his shivering mate. Sherlock smoothed his hands over John’s sweat-soaked hair and tilted his head up.

            “Mycroft brought us a gift,” he whispered, knowing John would be soothed by his voice. “Would you like to know what it is?”

            “If I say yes, will you fuck me?” John grunted out through clenched teeth.

            “I’ve spent the last four months preparing a synthetic pheromone blend that will mimic the effects of a biological Alpha-Omega bond between the two of us using our own natural scent markers,” Sherlock leaned down and pressed his face to John’s neck, seeking out his scent gland. He laved it with his tongue, drawing a long cry from his shuddering Omega. “I have the pheromones, and a syringe full of Firestarter. Upon injection, I will go into heat within approximately 34 minutes, leaving both of us open for bonding.”

            John opened his eyes, looking up into earnest quicksilver. Sherlock moved down the bed, kneeling over the compact body, and took John’s hands in his own.

            “I love you, John Watson, and I want to be your mate, for life. Will you bond with me?”

            The words reached through the thin haze that had settled over John’s thoughts, and his eyes became bright with coherence again. He blinked twice, as if processing, and then his face split into a brilliant smile. He pulled Sherlock down for a searing kiss.

            “Oh, God, yes.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

The needle slipped into the vein with practiced ease, something Sherlock would really rather not consider at quite this moment, and he disposed of the syringe as safely and promptly as he could. He straddled John’s body with practiced ease as well, a much more pleasant skin-memory, and under him the Omega gasped with the sensation. He rubbed his hands down John’s bare, sweat-filmed chest and licked a long line up his lover’s neck, breathing in the sweet, heavy scent of heat. Sherlock rolled his hips, grinding his arse down into John’s pelvis, making the blond arch with pleasure.

“Need you, Sherlock,” John whispered, pushing plaintively at Sherlock’s chest, trying to get him to move backward while lamenting the loss of pressure on his cock. Sherlock huffed a laugh at his weak attempts at dominance, but slid off of John anyway, kneeling between his splayed thighs. He pulled John’s arse into his lap with care, tilting it up so that the Omega’s good leg hung over his elbow, while the other sprawled lazily to the side.

"You smell amazing, John,” he murmured against John’s calf, sending shivers up the smaller man’s skin.

“Well, then, fuck me already,” John panted back, trying to restrain his writhing in Sherlock’s lap. Sherlock dipped his fingers to John’s entrance, prodding gently at the slick, loosened muscle there. He carefully pushed one finger inside, caressing along John’s inner walls, and the blond bucked hard in his lap, his cock spurting small amounts of clear fluid. Sherlock hummed as he worked in another finger, and then a third, sliding them easily in and out of his desperate lover.

“God, Sherlock… please, just… Ungh…”

Sherlock reached over John’s compact body to the nightstand beside the bed and extricated the toy he used for his own heats: a large, hollow silicone dildo with an inflatable knot on the end. John’s eyes widened with anxiety when he saw it, several times larger than anything he’d been intimate with in the past.

"You don’t have to… I mean, you would be enough, Sherlock, surely?” his voice was soft, uncertain even as liquid arousal pooled in his gut and lubricant seeped down his thighs.

“You really haven’t ever shared a heat, then,” Sherlock smiled as he said it, as if John’s inexperience was something charming but entirely unimportant.

“I just… want…” John figured there should have been something else added to that phrase, but words were increasingly difficult to find in this hazy space. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours since the heat started, but it felt like he had been waiting for years. _Then again, guess I have been_ , he thought, as Sherlock fiddled with something in the draw, out of his line of sight. John tried to look, craning his head around to see what Sherlock was doing, but all he got was a brisk slap to the arse cheek.

“No peeking. It’s a surprise,” Sherlock winked. He could already feel the tension prickling along his spine from the Firestarter, and the scent of John’s arousal was intoxicating. He fumbled with the straps, trying to get the harness settled around the dildo properly, and cursed himself for not having set it up earlier.

Under him, John closed his eyes. _If he wants to surprise me, let him_. With his focus off of the pale planes of Sherlock’s familiar body, the flush of heat took center stage in his brain once more. Fiery sparks of pleasure-pain coursed through his veins, lighting up his fingertips, dizzying with their intensity. He could feel Sherlock moving over him, settling him on the bed instead of in his lap, but it was very hazy, disconnected, as though everything outside of his body was happening underwater. Sensation crawled all over him, making his cock twitch against his belly and his muscles jump under glistening skin. He understood why other Omegas called heat painful; the need was overwhelming, frustrating, maddening with its constancy and its physicality. The barest breath of touch lit his entire body up like a Christmas tree. He squirmed and wriggled on the sheets, so soft and cool against his overheated skin, and nuzzled his face against the pillow.

“Sher… Sherlock, please?” he heard himself whining, and grimaced, trying to cut off any more begging. Sherlock understood though. He slid a hand down the side of John’s face, wiping sweat out of his eyes, and then cupped his cheek.

“Are you ready for me, love?” Sherlock asked, getting into position between his thighs again. John felt the cool, blunt press of the toy at his entrance, the very large toy, and suddenly he felt much less keen on the whole heat sex thing. He groped for Sherlock’s hand with his eyes still closed, and squeezed his thighs together. Sherlock pulled away abruptly.

“Will it hurt?” It wasn’t a stupid question; sex hurt sometimes, and sometimes he even wanted it to, but he wanted to be… prepared.

“Does it hurt now?” Sherlock grasped his hand and pulled it to his own mouth, lavishing kisses against his knuckles. “The heat, I mean. Are you in pain?”

“It’s… uncomfortable, yeah,” John opened his eyes, dared a look up at his gorgeous love. Sherlock looked concerned, but the glaze of lust on his face was unmistakable, and it made John shudder with want. He let his eyes travel down the milky smooth line of Sherlock’s torso, nearly hairless and pale as bone. The thick black strap crossing Sherlock’s hip broke the line of soft, warm skin, and John’s eyebrows shot up.

“It’s… is that…?”

“I wanted it to be me,” Sherlock stated simply, pulling John’s legs further apart as he revealed the harness holding the toy secured to his groin. “It won’t be just a piece of rubber. It will be me. If you still want it. Heat is uncomfortable, but this part,” he gestured down between them, “shouldn’t hurt. I want to take care of you.” He leaned down, still holding John’s hand, and pressed their lips together. The kiss was soft, sweet, tender, slow, all the things that John could not reconcile with what he’d heard about heat. As in all things, Sherlock was an anomaly, extraordinary.

“I want it to be you, too,” he sighed against the other Omega’s lips. His Omega. His love. “Come on, Sherlock. Fuck me.”

“Are you sure? We have suppressants. We can try again another time, if you like.”

“No. I want it. Want you. Come on.”

Sherlock nodded, pressed another kiss to his chapped lips, and then got back into position. For some reason, knowing that they were sharing that toy, that Sherlock was inside it, pushing it with his body, that it was a part of him, made it easier for John to accept. Sherlock lined up and pushed gently in, pressing slowly into the wet heat of John’s opening. John arched in surprise, taken aback by the sudden wave of pleasure hormones released upon penetration. His whole body sparked with feeling and he couldn’t help the long, loud cry that wrenched from his lips as Sherlock slid the rest of the way in, his body pressed tightly to John’s arse. The straps from the harness were cool against his skin and the knowledge that it wasn’t just a toy, but Sherlock’s cock inside him as well, sent tingles up and down John’s spine.

“Are you alright?” his lover asked anxiously, holding still though the pressure to move was palpable.

“Amazing, Sherlock, you’re amazing…” John ground out, grinning. “Feels… so much better than I thought it would.” Sherlock smirked.

“Obviously. Are you ready for me to move?” John just nodded, reaching up to grab at the detective’s shoulders. Sherlock lowered himself over John, grabbing one of his hands and pinning it next to his head, and held his own weight up with the other. He pulled his hips back, sighing as the tightness of the dildo around his cock eased up some, and then pushed back in, reveling in the minute friction and the hot pulse of John’s body around him, even through silicone. Each long thrust pulled more beautiful sounds from his lovely mate, and Sherlock devoured his mouth, trying to consume the whimpers and moans that tumbled out of it.

“Oh, Sherlock, God, that’s… ah, so good…” John keened, wrapping his legs tightly around Sherlock’s waist and pulling him in. Sherlock pushed in deeper, harder, mouthing down John’s neck with abandon. He sucked a dark bruise over John’s scent mark and rejoiced in the choked-off moan that was his reward. Each press of the toy into John’s slick passage squeezed around his own erection, shooting brilliant sparks of pleasure up his spine, but not enough to come, just to keep him there on the edge of the cliff. John’s brilliant blue eyes were dark with lust as he pumped in and out, feeling the spiral of John’s arousal near its peak. He pulled the hand that held John’s down between their bodies and grasped John’s erection with both of their fingers. The sudden pressure on his cock made the doctor’s eyes stutter closed and his mouth hang slack as sentiments and curses flowed from his throat. Sherlock pumped in and out twice more before activating the knot on the toy and slamming into his Omega, filling him completely.

John groaned, his eyes squeezed closed and his head pressing back into the pillow as the sweet, burning stretch of the knot stretched his rim. Above him, Sherlock shuddered, drenched and smelling distinctly sweeter than he had when they began. They worked together, pulling both of their hands over John’s erection as the knot continued to inflate, pressing both out and in, squeezing them both. Sherlock rubbed his thumb over the slick, sticky head of John’s cock just as the knot reached its full potential, and John came with a shout, clinging to Sherlock with both hands.

“You are so… fucking… beautiful like this,” Sherlock grit out. He unhooked the harness with one hand and carefully pulled his hips back a bit, holding the base of the toy still as it filled his lover. He pushed back in, slipping into the tight channel, imagining it was John’s heat-soaked arse he was entering. John groaned when he realized what was happening, and he reached down to anchor the wide base of the toy so that Sherlock could fuck it, _fuck him_. It only four short, harsh thrusts for Sherlock to spill inside the toy, inside _John_ , and then collapse on top of the doctor, panting and whimpering. John smoothed his hair away from his sweaty forehead, and pressed sweet, soft kisses against his face.

“S’okay love,” he caressed the skin of Sherlock’s face with his lips, murmuring drunkenly. “S’okay.”

“Just okay?” Sherlock lifted an eyebrow, still trying to catch his breath.

“Amazing,” John giggled, trying to shift under him and then remembering the rather large toy currently stuck in his arse. “Fantastic. Brilliant. Wonder-”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Sherlock rolled off of him, flopping onto his back. He grinned over at his doctor, all soaking and flushed and bright eyed. He twined their hands together again, ignoring the slight, tacky stick of drying fluid on them both.

“When will I be ready again?” With the haze of arousal gone from his eyes, John looked earnest and uncertain, a heady reminder that this was theirs, and theirs alone. Sherlock’s inner beast growled with satisfaction at the thought, though he didn’t let it show. Instead, he leaned to the side, to nuzzle his face into the delicious skin of John’s neck.

“The toy’s on a timer. Takes 12 minutes to release, generally. You’ll probably want an extra twenty or so to rest after that,” Sherlock breathed in John’s smell, rolled around in it like an animal.

“And you… you’ll be ready then?”

“Oh yes. More than,” Sherlock hummed. “For now, though… relax. You’re going to need it.”

John curled up on his side, careful not to jostle to toy still inside his body, and threw on arm over Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock clasped a hand around John’s forearm instinctively, decidedly _not snuggling_ , but moving close and sharing the buzzing warmth that had begun to course through his body. They dozed, sighing into one another’s mouths and pressing occasional lazy kisses to exposed skin. When the knot finally deflated, Sherlock removed it reverently, and then dipped a finger into the warm, slick depth of John’s body.

“Twenty more minutes, you said?” John groaned, squirming under the curious probing. Sherlock shuddered as he watched his own long, pale digit disappear inside John’s body. John rolled over him, careful not to dislodge Sherlock’s hand, and held himself above the detective.

“Are you telling me you are ahead of schedule, Doctor Watson?” Sherlock smiled, sliding another finger in with a squelch.

“Ready when you are, love,” John ground back on Sherlock’s hand, letting his head hang between his shoulders and rest lightly against Sherlock’s chest. As Sherlock slid a third finger inside, John panted, “Is it working?”

“Certainly seems to be, but you are rather more aware of the answer to that one than I am, John,” Sherlock laughed, twisting his hand and spreading his fingers apart inside the Omega.

“Not me, you git. The heat initiator. Is it working?”

Sherlock pulled John’s face close to his own and squeezed his pinky finger inside. “Smell for yourself?” He bared his throat and smiled at the desperate whimpers coming from his doctor. John ran his nose up and down the long line of Sherlock’s neck, then crossed it again with his mouth, laving the skin with his parched tongue.

“You smell amazing,” he huffed, fucking himself on Sherlock’s hand.

“I always smell amazing,” Sherlock teased, but nodded, feeling the liquid arousal running through his body, making him feverish and disoriented. “Do you still want this, John?”

“How many times do you have to ask me that, Sherlock?” John rocked backward, groaning at the twitch of long fingers inside him.

“Perhaps I just like hearing you say it.”

“Sherlock Holmes, bond with me.”

Sherlock tipped them over, rolling John onto his back, and fumbled toward the nightstand once more.

“Gladly, John Watson.”

 

 

“What is that, Sherlock?” John’s face was a picture of confused arousal. The slight haze had returned to his eyes and he was panting again, even though he didn’t seem to notice it.

“Use your deductive skills, John.” Sherlock slid two fingers into his own wet entrance and allowed lubricant to pool in his hand. On the bed next to them lay a large double-ended dildo with two inflatable knots near the middle, six inches apart. John hefted one end in his hand, running a thumb thoughtfully over the phallus.

“Both of us? At the same time?” John grinned, his eyes tracing the lines of Sherlock’s body as the detective prepared himself. “Really, Sherlock… blue glitter?”

“The world of sex paraphernalia is sadly lacking with regard to toys for Omega pairs to use during heat. I did the best I could,” Sherlock snapped, shooting a baleful look at the cerulean gel form. John laughed and scooted closer to him on the bed, reaching out to stroke his erection with a tender hand.

“I kind of like it, actually,” the doctor gave him a lopsided grin that made Sherlock’s heart flutter madly in his chest. He couldn’t resist; he pressed a deep, wet, dirty kiss to John’s mouth, losing himself briefly in the push and pull of tongues, lips, teeth. When he finally pulled back for air, the spaces where their bodies had touched were soaked in sweat, and a dark spot pooled under John’s body.

“Lay back, John.” Sherlock eased him onto his back and used the lubricant he’d collected from his own body to slick one end of the dildo. John’s pupils grew wider and darker with lust at the untempered smell of Sherlock’s arousal, and then at the pressure of the fake cock against his body. The head popped in with a squish, and John bit his lip reflexively, trying to hold back his desperate sounds. Sherlock tugged his arms, making John sit up on his elbows, and worked the toy deeply in and out of his arse.

“Oh fuck, Sherlock, that’s…”

“Just wait.”

Sherlock slid in front of him, kneeling between John’s knees.

“Wha- Sherlock, you’re facing the wrong…” John trailed off as Sherlock reached behind him to grab the other end of the toy. He pulled himself up on his hands and knees, offering John a perfect view as the head sank smoothly into his body.

“Push back, John,” Sherlock grunted out, trying to brace himself on all fours against the soft slide of sheets.

“I’m, ah-” shuffling behind him, “I’m trying, She- Sher- Oh God…That’s fucking beautiful…”

Sherlock arched his back, rocking himself backward on the large toy lodged in his arse. As the flared knob slipped past his rim, Sherlock groaned, letting his face fall to the bed below. Keening sounds from behind him registered vaguely under the rushing of blood in his ears. Sherlock’s arms shook with the force of his pleasured arousal, and he turned to watch the movement of their bodies in the vanity mirror. He watched, slack jawed, as John arched up, rocking his pelvis forward with long, smooth thrusts, fucking them both with the thick silicone. Sherlock fumbled on the bed in front of him for the small black remote, moaning shamelessly as the small knot penetrated him over and over. The outside of his thighs brushed against John’s legs, sweat-slick and quivering with tension, and the friction of skin against skin was delicious.

“Sherl… Sherloc—I’m not going to…” John huffed behind him, gasping around his own moans.

“I know,” Sherlock grunted back. “Hold still. Perfectly still, John.”

An unabashed whine escaped from John’s throat as he stilled his thrusting hips. The need was outstanding, a physical thing weighing on his skin, urging him to move, to fuck himself on the thick cock inside of him, to trigger the knot. John grit his teeth as he watched Sherlock pull off and then flip over, pushing his back off the mattress with his feet and elbows. The position should have looked ridiculous, but the strength of his legs, the film of perspiration on his chest, the jut of his cock and the wet entrance below it made John’s mouth water.

“Help me?” Sherlock was breathless, and his chest heaved with the strain of keeping up off of the bed.

He shuffled forward carefully as John sat up and held the toy steady. Sherlock sank down onto it, accidentally pushing the other end further into John’s arse, sparking simultaneous gasps. Sherlock twined their legs together, pushing his longer ones up under John’s and pulling the blond to an upright slump. John wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders, gripping his nape with one steady hand. They rocked together, frotting gently as the silicone stroked the insides of their bodies. Sherlock leaned forward, resting his forehead against John’s, huffing heavy breaths into his open mouth. Desperate noises spilled out of John’s throat and Sherlock caught them with his lips and teeth.

“Not gonna, unf… last much longer,” John ground down, scrabbling amongst the covers for the vial of honey-gold liquid. Sherlock held one of John’s hands in his own, and the other scooped up the remote that had fallen by the wayside again.

“Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“John, I’m, ah, serious,” Sherlock tried to tut, but the sound was interrupted by a loud moan.

“So’m I, love. I’m ready.” John twisted the cap off of the vial with his teeth. Their mixed scents surrounded them, stronger in the concentrated formula: honey and vanilla, cardamom and mint, apples and burnt sugar. Sherlock rocked forward, driving the toy into both of their bodies again, and hit the button on the remote, activating the double knots, causing them to swell and fill. John shuddered and clung to Sherlock’s hand, careful not to spill any of the precious liquid in the vial. He rocked desperately on the knot. He wanted to howl, to shout, to tell all of Baker street how it felt and what it meant and what it did to him.

Sherlock took the vial from his hand and quickly poured some over his fingers, tugging them toward the graceful column of the detective’s neck. John found his scent gland unerringly, and began massaging the thick, viscous liquid into Sherlock’s skin, as the other man did the same to him. Every drop of that fluid sunshine spread on their skin, staining the air between them with chemical need. Their joined hands released only to wrap arms around one another’s shoulders, rocking back and forth with minute presses of thighs and cocks and lips. Sherlock reached down and took John’s erection in hand, and John mimicked his movements, wrapping a steady hand around his lover’s cock. Together, they stroked, quick and rough and perfect, until John, near delirious with pleasure, grunted out a warning.

“Now, Sherlock, do it now.” He bared his throat, and Sherlock sank his teeth into the delicate skin, quick and efficient, letting the bonding serum spread into the wound. John came with a shout, and his hand on Sherlock’s prick tightened, forcing the detective over the edge. Before Sherlock could even speak a warning, John’s mouth was on him, making the bite, completing the bond.

Extra awareness flooded John’s mind as he sank backward onto the pillows, and pulled Sherlock gently down on top of himself. It wasn’t like he imagined Sherlock’s observational powers to be, not clear and sharp and logical, but it was as if a thread was tied between their bodies, and the very nearness of his mate filled John with contentment, with peace. Sherlock lapped at the bond bite, soothing it with his tongue and helping spread the serum into John’s bloodstream, but it was unnecessary; the bond had taken. Already John could smell hints of Sherlock in his own scent, and hints of himself on his lover. He rubbed his nose gently over the dark bruise of Sherlock’s scent gland, nuzzling comfortably while they stayed knotted together. Sherlock pushed himself up on his elbows, holding his face easily over John’s. His eyes were shiny and vivid in the dim light, and John kissed him with languor, laughing into his mouth when the brunet pushed and prodded him into a more comfortable position.

“Mate,” Sherlock growled against John’s lips. “You are meant to be panting with desire for me, not _laughing_.”

“Mate,” John returned, his dark blue eyes smiling. “Can’t I do both?”

Sherlock smiled and rocked them onto their sides, curling his body gently around the doctor’s. John’s. _His mate’s_. He pressed loving, careful kisses to John’s face, noting the fatigued crinkles around John’s eyes and the slight sag of his brow. _Exhausted, likely dehydrated, probably needs fuel, definitely needs-_

“Stop, Sherlock,” John’s voice was gentle, chiding. “Stay here with me? Don’t go running off into your head, please.”

“I wasn’t running off anywhere,” Sherlock huffed. “I was just noting that if this is going to continue for the next three to five days, you need to be hydrated, and to have a proper nap.”

“Taking care of me, are you?”

“Is that not what Omegas do? The nurturing gender, care-taking and kind and… effeminate?” Sherlock arched a brow at the mock-horrified look on John’s face.

“And that’s what you expect from me now, is it? Femininity and light?” John had to cover his mouth to stifle a laugh but quickly schooled his features back into seriousness. “Now that we’ve bonded are you expecting me to be a dutiful wife?”

“Absolutely. I’ll expect you to feed me, and clean up after me, and put me to bed,” Sherlock grinned.

“Oh, so nothing changes, eh?” John snuggled closer, and groaned softly as the knot inside him began to deflate. Sherlock gathered him close, gently tugging the toy from their bodies and tossing it to the floor next to the bed. “You’re cleaning that up, by the way.”

“Of course, doctor.” The detective kissed his mate, tender and loving and soft. “I’ll take care of you, too, you know. I want to.”

“I don’t need you to.” Kind eyes smiled back at him. “But I like knowing you will. That you want to is…”

“Unexpected. I know. But I can. I want to. I want to be so good for you, John,” Sherlock wrapped an arm around John’s waist, hoisting their bodies together, feeling the soft plush of John’s stomach against the scarceness of his own.

“I know you do. You are. And it isn’t unexpected. Since you found out, you’ve been taking care of me. Longer than that, even. Since we met. You’ve put me back together more times than I can count, and now I have this, something I never expected to have, and it’s wonderful and terrifying and absolutely brilliant, just like you. So, no, it isn’t unexpected, Sherlock.”

“If not unexpected, then what is it? What were you going to say?” Sherlock’s brow furrowed but his head was much too hazy to try and work out John’s feelings at the moment. Instead, he dragged his fingers through the blond’s hair, urging him to relax.

John rested his head against Sherlock’s shoulder, dragging in a deep breath of his Omega’s scent. He kissed up Sherlock’s neck to his ear, down his jaw, traced the plump line of his lips with a darting tongue.  He pulled away and pressed a kiss to the bond bite, bruised and sensitive. Sherlock caught his chin and pulled him back up into a searing kiss, their exhaustion fading in the light of renewed arousal.

“That I want to take care of you is…” Sherlock prompted, grinding his hips into John in small, abortive motions. John shivered and rocked against him before pressing another kiss to the man’s mouth.

“It’s sweet.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! It's over! Thank you so much for your comments, kudos, bookmarks, and tumblr kindnesses. I hope that it has been as satisfying a journey for you to read as it has been for me to write.

**Author's Note:**

> Your feedback is valuable to all fic writers, and I'm no exception. If you enjoyed this story, please let me know.
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://quicklikelight.tumblr.com).


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